When I was in highschool, there was a guy who was constantly harassing me. He was friends with a friend of mine, and our school wasn’t so big, so he was always around it seemed and even in a few of my classes. He always commented on my breasts (I have fairly large ones), would say I had “the perfect BJ mouth”, and wouldn’t let up when I asked him to stop. I had one class with him where he sat right next to me, and during the class he would suddenly grab my breast and grin at me when I would look at him in shock. This happened almost every day, and when I would confront him he would laugh and say, “it was a ghost!” It really bugs me that, not only did he get away with it, but my teacher never seemed to care. We sat in front of his desk, and I knew he was aware. It made me so uncomfortable because the guy was popular and I would most likely get harassed more if I went to the principle. I felt powerless.

I lived in the NY/NJ area for 7 years – and over that time, I had men expose themselves to me on the subway, call to me on the street and then masturbate, and one time I wasn’t even off of the steps to my building when a guy said “nice tits”. But the worst experience I had was when I was living in Jersey City, NJ and working in Manhattan.

I often took the bus in and out of Port Authority. One night, I was out in NY with friends, and was going home about 11 PM so the terminal was pretty empty and quiet. It was summer, and I was wearing a white sundress that fell just below my knees. As I was standing on the escalator going up to the next floor, I felt my skirt brush my leg. It was odd because the escalator wasn’t crowded, and when I turned to see what caused it, I discovered a man lying on the escalator behind me, peering up my skirt. I immediately started shouting, “Stop it! Get away from me!” and I ran to my bus platform as quickly as possible, because I knew there would be other people waiting there as well. The man followed me. As I neared the platform, I continued shouting, “That man is following me – he just looked up my skirt” By this point I was crying and very upset. The worst part of it, however, was the indifference of the people waiting. Someone actually said, “what do you expect?” and everyone literally avoided me, as if I was crazy.

When I got on the bus, I was sobbing uncontrollably, and no one wanted to sit next to me (which was fine with me). Then one man politely and respectfully asked if he could sit next to me. After he sat down, he apologized for the behavior of everyone else. He asked me if I wanted to talk about it, and I told him what happened. He again apologized for my experience. And then he started asking me random, small talk questions in an effort to divert my attention and make me feel better. He was the only person in a bus load of people that didn’t treat me like a leper. He even offered to walk me to my door, but there was no way I was going to trust him just because he was nice to me. I don’t know if he was trying to take advantage of my being in a vulnerable state, but I like to think that he was just a good guy in a sea of creeps.

My husband and I recently moved into a brand new townhouse. There is still a lot of construction going on in the neighborhood, especially right behind our house. I am in my early 20’s and have been harassed on the street too many times to count. If you are a woman or a part of the LGBTQ community, I am 99% positive that you have been harassed by a construction worker at least once in your life.

One day this summer I went out to get the mail. Since I live in a townhouse my mailbox is not simply at the end of my drive way. While I was walking back from grabbing the mail, a construction worker started to catcall. “Hey! Hey pretty!” I ignored his comments. “Hey! Hey I’m talking to you!” He did not like that I did not give him the time of day. I did not flick him off like I wanted to nor did I even look his way. By the time I reached my garage he was still trying to get my attention. I closed the garage door and stormed into my house. I was pissed! I was pissed that I was harassed at my own home. Home is a place where you are supposed to feel safe and welcomed. Every other time that I have been harassed I have flicked the guy/s off. I believe the reason why I did not respond was because I did not feel safe to do so; the bastard knows where I live.

On another day before the mailbox situation, I was walking back from the grocery store next to the house. This guy driving a construction bobcat pulled up next to me and said “Hey pretty, why don’t you hop on up here and I’ll give you a ride?” I said, “No.” He responded, “Just trying to do something nice for a lady.” He winked at me and kept driving. I was only 20ft away from my front door.

Some drunk guys walked into me (I was stationary, just standing and chatting with friends) and called me a lesbian (as if that’s an insult), and called me a bitch and told me to suck his cock. I, perhaps, reacted strongly and walked after him half a block shouting obscenities at him. He did not expect that reaction and scampered away. I’m not saying that was the safest thing I could have done, but he definitely tried to get away from me.

I was on holiday in NYC for 2 weeks- here are some incidents I dealt with during that time.

-I walked past a guy, and he made that “psssst” sound, three times as I was walking past. I ignored him, naturally, and carried on walking, while grimacing.
-A lot of “HEY!”/”Oh, beautiful”/”mm sexy”/”GOD DAMN” comments in my face or as I was walking past
-“SUP! SUP! SUP! ….SUP! SUP!!!! (all the while, I’m ignoring these guys but have noticed them all staring at me and smirking)… “ARE YOU A SUICIDE GIRL? THINK I’VE SEEN YOU IN MAGAZINES. HEY! OI!” – I ignored them the whole time, and they carried on
-Someone made some noise at me on 2nd ave (I don’t remember what exactly, but it was insulting that’s for sure), so I turned round and noticed him laughing, and shook my head and said “that’s really f***ing rude.” – he looked taken aback that I’d replied
-I was on my way home from a show in Brooklyn at about midnight, and two guys were following me down the platform (there was no-one else down there) and were whistling and smirking at me the whole time- that made me feel SO safe… really. I could feel myself panicking but couldn’t do anything until my train came- luckily they didn’t get on
-We were coming through Times Square one night on the way home, and were stopped by a group of guys. To cut a long story short, they were quite intimidating- they asked a lot of questions and basically kept asking if we wanted to ‘hook up’ and have them show us NYC. I replied that I know my way around and that I don’t think my boyfriend would like that. This guy was pretty persistent and didn’t really seem to care… oh and the whole time (about 5/10 minutes, even when he was talking) he was staring directly at my chest. I hate how these guys stand around in big groups, especially on 42nd street, seemingly targeting young females/female tourists and attempting to pick them up. It doesn’t work with me, but I’m sure it works on some girls who are perhaps younger, more naive and vulnerable than myself. You know this group of guys wouldn’t have even looked twice at me if I had been with a guy (whether that’s my boyfriend or a male friend), but as it was two females on their own, they thought they had a shot.
-I think the worst was when we were waiting to cross the street (also near 42nd, duh), and a guy in his van pulled across in front of us, in moving traffic, stopped the van, opened the window and gestured at me to get in. He did it a couple of times, and I was not in the mood, so I gave him the middle finger and shook my head in a pitiful kind of way. He then gestured at me to get in again, then drove off. All the while holding up traffic. We got to the next block and waited to cross again… he was back. He’d driven round the block in about 20 seconds to give me more shit.. this time he actually leaned out of the window (again, stopping moving traffic) and said something while grinning at me, so I just waved him on (the whole time there was a load of people standing with me and on the other side, just watching me and him) and told him “I AM NOT INTERESTED, MOVE, MOVE, MOVE, JUST GO” (being in a crowd of people, I still felt so threatened, not to mention embarrassed that he was singling me out, out of everyone there). Finally he drove off. So that was that… then to make matters 10x worse, two guys crossed from the other side and came towards us. One said to me “he just stopped traffic for you! He wanted to talk to you!” and I said “yeah well i’m not interested, it’s pathetic. I don’t want to talk to people like that, it’s gross.” He replied “yeah, it’s horrible, what can I say. I’m sorry. It’s New York. You don’t want to talk to guys like that.” This whole time I was looking monumentally fucked off, was being very disinterested in him and wasn’t even making eye contact, clearly wanting to just get on with my day. He then asked where we were going, and then said “how long are you going to be around? Do you want to maybe meet up again with me and my friend here?” (his friend then flashed a creepy smile at my friend and I – SERIOUSLY?! I couldn’t believe that in one breath he was seemingly sympathizing with me and the next trying to ‘hook up’ with us, despite seeing how upset I was.

Back in the UK- the other day, my best friend and I were walking around her town, and were walking past a man – he says to us “alright girls?” to which my friend replied “hello” and he then said “fancy a shag?” – why? why is this necessary? It’s degrading, disgusting and sad.
– Yesterday I was walking along a main road and a builder’s van passed me, unfortunately with the windows open, so I had to hear that “OW OW OWWWWWW” woofing type noise the ‘men’ inside felt the need to scream out at me as I walked past.

Multiple times I have come across men being disgusting either to me or to another woman and I always say something.

This particular incident was when I was leaving work, when we leave we leave through a back alley, across the alley is the back door to a nightclub. Attractive women are often escorted through this door by promoters, and also the staff goes in and out from this door. Being a nightclub the employed women of the club dress provocatively.

One of my dishwashers and a cook came out from my job and the dishwasher proceeded to start whistling and barking as one lone woman made her way past him to the club’s door.

And then looked at me and the scowl I had on my face he asked me what is wrong.

I told him calmly that it was inappropriate and disgusting to do that to a woman.

He told me I was jealous. (Which is the most infuriating thing ever to hear a man say when you defend another woman, because I feel some women believe this)

I asked him if he was a dog, if she was a dog. He said no. Then I asked Did she looked like she enjoyed it. He said she didn’t have to he knew she did.

At this point the cook tried to tell me that is just how he is and to let it go.

I went off. And this is about what I said:

“In no way shape or form is acting like a complete asshole something you should let go and not reprimand. Would you let it go if that was your mother, sister or daughter? It is disgusting, and telling him to cut that shit out is not me being jealous, it is me knowing what it is like to walk alone and have men follow you, call at you and try to touch you. She looked scared, and he looked like a damn sexual predator. Cut that shit out, if not cute, it isn’t getting you laid and I won’t stand for it while I work here.”

Since then he has only barked at a hostess not knowing I was there, and as soon as he noticed me he hid in the dish pit.

On the way home from walking to a Now Care clinic with my infant son who was sick, a couple of guys drove past honking their horn and shouting at me. I couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying, but I did catch “MILF”. No one else was out on the sidewalks on either side if the road so it was obviously they were calling to me. But before I could realize which car it was, they were too far gone for me to shout anything back.

I was walking down the street when a car drove by with two men in it who thought it necessary to scream at us. They didn’t scream anything in particular, just trying to make noise to startle us or something? Regardless of their intentions, my gut reaction was to loudly screech back at them.
Even though it wasn’t the worst harassment I’ve endured from men on the street, it felt good to shout back at men who felt the need to assert their “dominance” or whatever through street harassment.

I walk every night. I carry my phone with me and listen to a book as I walk. I live in a nice area made up of residential homes, but even so I still am aware of my surroundings. Along the main road sometimes some people lean out their window and stare or or say something rude to me. Some people try to see how close they can get to me without pushing me off the road. But tonight I experienced something that was really odd.

I hear a car coming and I glance back. It’s a police car, the car slows and I think the man Is going to stop and talk to me. As I look back again he slows until he’s about ten feet behind me then sits there. He crawled along at me at me walking pace for about five minuets. He then proceeded to pull up to the stop sign in front of me and stare at me through his rear view. I crossed to the opposite side of the road not wanting to be near him. I stop and look for oncoming traffics to see if it is safe to cross. No one was coming. I cross to another street the whole time aware of his gaze on me.

When I’m just about getting out of his sight he pulls up and continues to follow me. After a few mins he drives down my street and out of view. I understand the police have a duty to watch people who might he showing suspicious conduct. But all I was doing was walking. And if he had a problem he should have spoken to me. If it had been anyone else in a normal car following me I would have called the cops. But what do you do when it’s the cop who’s the problem?

He knew he was making me uncomfortable and yet he continued. I kept checking over my shoulder the whole way home he made me so nervous. I shouldn’t have to feel that way from someone who’s there to protect me. My gut was telling me it was wrong.

A couple of years ago I was walking through my high school when someone, dressed in uniform I may add, grabbed my butt from behind. I was speechless and felt hurt and degraded. I looked back only to see the man who wasn’t even a student with a smirk on face, like he was proud of what he did or felt it was his right to do so. Ugh! Disgusting.